The Anxiety Solution Read online

  So if constant productivity and striving for success won’t make us happy, what will? Perhaps it’s having peace of mind, which is what helps us to feel good in the moment, right now. Or having great relationships and quality time with the people we love. Things totally changed for me when I set peace of mind as my priority; I became loads happier and calmer. I treat taking care of myself as my job, because it really is! I can’t be a good person, therapist, writer, girlfriend or friend without first taking care of myself.

  As the old saying goes, ‘life is a journey’ – but if you’re too busy to enjoy it, what’s the point? When your body is dead and gone, your achievements won’t mean an awful lot. A lot of people love the saying, ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead,’ but that implies living life at breakneck speed, being ‘on’ all the time and potentially making yourself ill. The time to rest and enjoy yourself is now – don’t underestimate its importance!

  Self-care – the antidote to toxic busyness

  When you’re anxious and permanently on the go, self-care is often the last thing on your mind. It’s a classic case of chicken and egg, because self-neglect can itself be a cause of anxiety. Either way, if you’re feeling anxious or burnt out, then stepping up your self-care is an essential part of the solution. Looking after yourself sends you a powerful message that you matter, you’re valuable and that you’re worth taking care of. Maybe you won’t believe it at first, but every time you do something kind and positive for yourself, even if it’s as small as making sure your nails are always manicured and your eyebrows are neat and tidy, you reinforce the belief that you deserve it (and sweetheart, you absolutely do).

  What would feel like self-care for you? Maybe you’re a classic bubble-bath-and-glass-of-wine gal. Or maybe sitting in your favourite cafe doing nothing but watching the world go by puts you in the chill zone. Maybe it’s borrowing the neighbour’s dog and tramping round a field with, plus lots of doggy cuddles, that makes you feel really taken care of? Or maybe self-care means asking others for help and allowing yourself to receive it.

  Exercise: prioritize looking after yourself

  Brainstorm at least twenty ideas that sum up self-care and relaxation for you. Schedule some of these into your diary and treat these appointments with the same importance you would a work meeting. When it’s in the diary, it’s set in stone. It might be having a walk at lunchtime, going for a yoga class or reading a book in the park for an hour. These are essential things, not a luxury.

  Head to here in The Anxiety Solution Toolkit in chapter nine to write down your twenty self-care ideas, then schedule some into the diary on here. If something is scheduled in, it's more likely to happen.

  Self-esteem and appearance

  When I got to university, my brand-new student loan and sudden exposure to abundant cheap alcohol and fast food meant I quickly gained my ‘fresher’s 14’ (lbs). But I soon started to worry about my weight and what I was eating. I believed I had to look like a Victoria’s Secret model or a member of The OC in order to get a boyfriend and feel OK about myself. While I never had a full-blown eating disorder, I thought about food constantly and I rarely felt comfortable in my body, despite only being a UK size 12.

  When we’re unhappy with our bodies and the way we look, we’re less likely to go out and enjoy our lives. We can become preoccupied with food and our weight, endlessly beating ourselves up about what we eat, which only adds another level of pressure and anxiety to our lives. Worries about how we look can become obsessive and may be a symptom of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), which is a type of anxiety disorder. Always speak to your doctor or a therapist if you think you might have an eating disorder.

  Eating disorders can be devastating, even fatal, but some level of disordered eating and anxiety around their bodies is a routine part of many women’s lives. The YouGov 2015 Global Body Image Study found that 44 per cent of women are unhappy with their bodies.1 Unsurprisingly, it’s something that affects many more women than men.2

  Research also suggests that anxiety about our bodies is more about the way we think than the reality of what we look like. Being super slim and beautiful doesn’t stop you from having body anxiety, because the problem is generated by what’s going on inside our brains, not by any objective ‘truth’.

  In her book Rising Strong, shame and vulnerability researcher Brené Brown tells us, ‘Body image fear [is]the most common shame trigger for women.’ It’s the single biggest reason women don’t feel good enough. ‘Shame works like the zoom lens on a camera. When we are feeling shame, the camera is zoomed in tight and all we see is our flawed selves,’ she writes. Brené’s research has suggested that a whopping 90 per cent of women experience shame around body image. It’s an almost universal trigger for not feeling good enough.

  A study in 2003 by Dr Marika Tiggeman at Flinders University of South Australia, published in the European Eating Disorders Review, found that reading fashion and beauty magazines was linked to increased body dissatisfaction and rates of eating disorders.3 That YouGov study also revealed that 74 per cent of us blame celebrity culture and social media for our body anxiety. Meanwhile, only about 5 per cent of us naturally have a body type comparable to the super-slim models we see on the TV and in magazines. It’s like trying to fit a square peg into a (skinny) round hole. We’re comparing ourselves to a body type that’s just not what nature intended for most of us.

  In 1995, TV was introduced to the island of Fiji (I know – how did they go so long without it!). Suddenly, young girls were being exposed to ads showing skinny American models and the glamorous lives of the characters on Beverly Hills 90210. Traditional Fijian culture had appreciated women with larger bodies but, following the introduction of television, girls on the island quickly became unhappy with their bodies. A study by psychiatrist Anne E. Becker revealed that 45 per cent of these girls showed signs of eating disorders and body anxiety, using purging methods such as laxatives and vomiting in order to lose weight.4

  Try to view the media you consume as you do the food you eat. If you consume rubbish, you’re going to feel that way. If you read a magazine or online gossip site that’s fat-shaming some poor woman who’s gained weight, or they’ve circled her cellulite with red pen, this is going to feed into your psyche about how it’s wrong to be larger or have cellulite (which pretty much all women have anyway, even models – it’s just airbrushed out!). If we read this sort of thing often enough it becomes a mental habit to be critical of ourselves and others and to find things like cellulite unacceptable.

  Obviously, we can’t avoid the media altogether, but curating what you watch and read can make all the difference. If a programme, magazine or website triggers a ton of self-doubt and worthlessness, ask yourself, is it worth reading/watching it? If following certain people on Instagram makes you hate your body, unfollow them. If watching Made in Chelsea makes you obsess over your muffin top, turn it off. It might only need to be a temporary measure, just until you feel more secure, but really, why expose yourself to things that make you feel like crap? For me, at certain times of the month or when I’m tired or having one of those days when I just don’t feel great about myself, I’m especially careful about what I watch and listen to and I make sure I’m taking extra care of myself.

  This issue really hit home to me when a client of mine told me that she spent dozens of anxious hours Googling and thinking about plastic surgery options. She was an incredibly attractive, slim, young woman, but that didn’t mean a thing to her. In her mind, she wasn’t good enough. The truth is it doesn’t matter what you look like or how much you weigh, it’s how you think about yourself that is important. In a world where 68 per cent of models suffer from anxiety or depression, we have to realize that having model good looks isn’t any guarantee of happiness.5

  Maybe you’ve told yourself, ‘When I’m slimmer, finally I’ll like myself and I can relax and be happy.’ This is the wrong way round. Making peace with yourself first, the way you are, is the key to feeling attracti
ve and confident, peaceful and happy. I found a lot of relief by giving myself permission to be who I was, and it can work for you, too. You don’t need to be skinny or meet the definition of beauty determined by the fashion industry or celebrity culture. You just need to be you – that’s enough. We can only ever feel good in the present moment. Can you give yourself permission right now to be OK with yourself as you are?

  I recently went for a walk in Kew Gardens in London. It was looking completely gorgeous. The leaves on the trees were bursting with golden and orange shades; ducks and birds roamed free; mushrooms sprouted in the leaf mould. Nature was blooming in the carefree way that it does. The gnarly branches of a tree don’t much care about what you think of them. They don’t compare themselves to other trees. The mushrooms don’t fret about their irregular, knobbly shape. Birds don’t worry about the tunefulness of their singing. Nature just expresses itself. It is what it is, and it’s beautiful, in all its imperfections. And guess what? You’re a part of nature, too! Try to recognize this and to realize that you’re fine just as you are.

  Whenever I notice myself becoming critical about my body I come back to this idea that I’m a part of nature. In the same way that I don’t judge a cat for being too hairy, or a dog for having a wet nose, I won’t judge myself for having thighs that wobble when I walk or hair that won’t stay straight in the rain. The majority of our criticisms are about how we look compared to someone else or how we think we should look. But Mother Nature didn’t make any mistakes when she made you; you’re exactly how you should be. And if reaching a healthy weight is a goal for you, accepting and loving yourself, as you are, is always the most motivating way to get there. Love wins over hate every time.

  If you think I’m over-stressing the role confidence and self-love can play in your sense of your own attractiveness, try this. Imagine two twins of equal physical attractiveness. One is having fun and looking confident and relaxed. The other is self-conscious, hunched over and worried-looking. No prize for guessing which one appears more attractive. Confidence is one of the most attractive qualities you can possess. And unlike your breasts, it’s easy to increase it without having to resort to drastic (surgical) measures. Instead of worrying about how you look, focus on feeling confident and good about yourself instead. There are loads of ideas and inspiration for doing this in the Anxiety Solution Toolkit in Chapter nine but here’s one very powerful exercise to get you started.

  Exercise: boost your body confidence

  In her book Life Loves You, author Louise Hay describes a technique called mirror work, which enables you to change your perception of yourself. You stand in front of a mirror and look into your own eyes as you tell yourself the positive things you want to take on board. You could say things such as, ‘I am enough, I love myself, I am an attractive and confident person.’ There’s something very powerful and meaningful about looking into your own eyes and saying it out loud to yourself – just make sure your housemate is out while you do it. (Unless she wants to get in on it, too!) You’ll find, with enough repetition, that you begin to believe it.

  Self-esteem and inner talk

  It had been a hectic day and my brain was fried. I’d been sitting at my computer for hours agonizing over a tech issue, but now I had to go to a networking event. As I walked into the busy room, I spotted someone I knew and made my way over. I was tired and not feeling myself and I tried to make a joke that just didn’t land. I got confused and it came out all wrong. I felt my face getting hot and a horrible wave of shame and self-judgement come crashing over me. My internal dialogue turned nasty. ‘Ugh! Why am I such an idiot! She’s not going to want to talk to me again! Why can’t I just be normal?’

  At this point, I had a choice: to carry on beating myself up and end up feeling even crappier, or to put it through the friend filter. So I put myself in my best friend’s shoes. What would she say about this? As soon as I had this thought, I could already hear her laughing it off. ‘It’s not a big deal, she probably didn’t even notice! Chloe, you’re great, all your friends love you. You were just tired. Tomorrow, this won’t matter. And who wants to be normal anyway!?’ I felt better almost instantly.

  When I first ask my clients how they speak to themselves, they’ll often stare at me blankly. It’s not something many of us think about. But we are always talking to ourselves in our heads. ‘You look so fat today. No one really likes you. You never do anything right. You’re a fucking loser, you may as well give up.’ On and on goes the negative chatter. It’s not nice, is it? Would you talk to your bestie that way? I bet not – and if you did, you’d better believe she’d ditch you pretty quick! This is the way many of us talk to ourselves all the time. Often we’re not even aware of it; it just happens on autopilot, but it’s high time you became aware, because being a bully has never helped anyone.

  You’re not alone – pretty much every single one of us carries these critical voices around with us in our heads. But here’s the thing. They aren’t telling the truth. Honest. It can be really hard to remember that, though, so when those thoughts are plaguing you, try to see things from the perspective of someone who loves you. And it might sound odd, but that mean inner voice is actually trying to help you learn something from the situation so you don’t do it again. (True, its technique sucks – but its instinct is to keep you safe.)

  Many of us subconsciously believe that we need to be hard on ourselves in order to get better. We think that if we’re too nice to ourselves we’ll slack off and nothing will get done! But as anyone who had critical parents or a critical teacher will know, criticism only makes you feel bad about yourself, and that’s hardly inspiring or motivating. In fact, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that being overly self-critical can be linked to our upbringing.6 If you had critical parents or a dysfunctional or insecure family upbringing, you’re more likely to give yourself a hard time. While you can’t change the past, there is good news! Being self-critical is a learnt behaviour, which means you can unlearn it and create a new, kinder way of being.

  In her book Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind, Dr Kristin Neff, associate professor of human development at the University of Texas, Austin, demonstrates that people who are kind and supportive towards themselves are more motivated to do better than those who have a harsh inner dialogue. So if you think giving yourself hell over little mistakes is going to help, you’re dead wrong. When we’re hard on ourselves it makes us more afraid of failure, and when we fear failure we’re less likely to even try. Being kind isn’t about lowering your standards. It’s a way of encouraging and supporting yourself to be the best you can be. We are all imperfect; we all make mistakes. None of us escapes fucking things up sometimes. Self-compassion is about being OK with our imperfections rather than judging and criticizing ourselves. We all need and deserve that.

  Exercise: kind? Or kind of a bitch?

  It’s time to get honest with yourself about your self-talk. Are you being kind? Or kind of a bitch? I recommend checking in with yourself several times a day – set a reminder on your phone or calendar – to ask yourself, ‘How am I speaking to myself now?’ Make a note of what you discover. If it’s not very nice, then you could try one of my favourite techniques for silencing my inner Mean Girl, which is to turn her into a character with a silly voice. It could be Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse or Angelica Pickles, the meanie from The Rugrats! Mine is Toad (of Toad Hall) dressed as a washerwoman, with a really high-pitched voice (this is random, but it works for me!), and when I hear her telling me that I’m useless or that I’m not good enough, I just tell her to pipe down and be quiet! By seeing your inner critic as a character with a silly voice, you can start to take it less seriously and recognize that it’s not the real you, that it’s not helpful and that you can safely ignore it.

  Another powerful tool is to put all that mean talk through the friend filter: would you speak to a friend like that? Would your best friend speak to you like that? If the answer is ‘n
o’, it’s time to make a change. How can you change your self-talk so that it’s kinder, more positive and supportive? Make a note of how you would speak to yourself having ‘friend filtered’ it. Write out a different script for your self-talk. As you repeat this exercise it will become more and more automatic to speak to yourself in a kind and loving way.

  Self-esteem and people-pleasing

  If you constantly worry about what other people think of you, you’re setting yourself up for misery. Actually, it’s none of your business what others think about you. Their opinions are just that: only an opinion, and besides, they always speak more about themselves than they do about you.

  Most of us believe that our opinions (and those of other people) are in some way true. We think the way we see the world is like a video camera, taking in everything and perceiving it as it really is. But this isn’t true. We are actually more like projectors, beaming out our thoughts, beliefs and experiences on to the world and, in the process, creating what we see. When another person sees you, they’re not seeing the real you. They’re seeing all their own beliefs, experiences and emotions – and projecting them on to you. And you can’t control any of that! Their upbringing, beliefs about how people ‘should’ act, the sort of day they’ve had or whether you remind them of someone else can all come into play. This doesn’t mean you should never take on board any feedback from other people. It just means that you should avoid taking on that heavy responsibility for what other people think of you. There’s a lot of relief to be gained from admitting it’s OK not to be liked by everyone.